In most industrialized areas of the world, vast quantities of fluids are transported, stored, handled, and processed through flanged conduits and equipment such as flanged pipelines, flanged piping, and flanged hose assemblies. For example, process and power piping and pipelines are commonly comprised of a plurality of flanged pipe sections secured together at their flanged ends with use of a suitable securing means, such as by use of a plurality of bolts or nuts and bolts. Non-limiting examples of fluids that are transported through flanged conduits and equipment include crude oils, lubricating oils, natural gas, transportation fuels, as well as a variety of petrochemical feedstock and product streams, slurries, industrial gases, food products, pharmaceuticals, etc. Further, such flanged conduits are often of considerable length and can extend for many miles over all types of geographic terrain.
A substantial fraction of pipelines today is located underneath bodies of water and are often subjected to saltwater environments. Piping and pipeline integrity and safety are of utmost concern. Many of these pipelines, process equipment, and related piping in use today are continuously filled with valuable and potentially hazardous fluids. Some such fluids can be lethal, explosive, highly flammable, or highly reactive under inordinately high pressures and temperature combinations. Consequently, sections of traditional piping, including piping manufactured for use for these pipelines, as well as related flanged equipment, such as pressure vessels and heat exchangers, etc., are generally required to undergo both initial testing at the time of fabrication, alteration, or repairs and subject to Code, statutory mandated, and/or periodic hydrostatic testing. This testing is performed under the constraints dictated by the specific industry, piping system Code, to which it is designed, the customer, as well as constraints that are required by various governing bodies, including in some instances sound engineering judgment. One such specification that is required is that the pressure integrity of the flanged piping and/or pipeline and related flanged equipment is validated before being placed into service and throughout its intended use and commercial lifetime.
Hydrostatic testing generally requires that each end of a flanged item to be tested be sealed against an applied testing pressure without leaking during the duration of the test. The flanged item to be tested is typically filled with a fluid under pressure, generally water, or in some instances an inert gas, such as nitrogen. Conventionally, a blind flange of the testing apparatus is bolted onto the flange at each end of the flanged item to be tested. The connecting flanges are then typically bolted together using code required torque sequences to ensure that at least one sealing gasket between flanges is fully energized and capable of resisting the hydrostatic pressure during testing and any applied external loads. Depending on the size of the flange and the selected test pressure, from about four to dozens of bolts per set of flanges can be required. Securing and torqueing these bolts is an extremely laborious, repetitive, and time-consuming process that can take up to several hours to one or more days to simply prepare a single flanged connection for hydrostatic testing. Therefore, there is a need in the art for an apparatus that will substantially reduce the time and costs of performing hydrostatic testing.